I wanted to have a go at making my own char siu pork as I love the look of it! We never get takeaway as there isn’t anywhere to get it where I live, but I still love the takaway experience (lots of dishes to help yourself to!) so will often do a Chinese, Indian or Mexican at the weekend. Because there are so many amazing flavours in these cuisines anyway, you really don’t need all the fat and oil that you would get in a takeaway dish in order to have something that still tastes amazing.

If I remember the day before then I marinade my pork overnight, but if not then I would give it at least 2 hours in the marinade before cooking.

The red food colouring is completely optional, it doesn’t do anything to the flavour, but personally I like having the red colour of the Chinese pork as it just makes it look like a proper takeaway- just leave this bit out if you aren’t bothered though!

For Slimming World: The total amount of syns in the marinade is 5 syns. Most of the marinade gets discarded before cooking, so actually most of the syns don’t end up on the pork, but I would count this as 1 per portion. (1 tbsp honey= 2 syns, 1 tbsp rice wine = 1 syn, 1 tbsp hoisin sauce = 1.5 syns)

I love this as part of a Chinese banquet! Here are some of the other dishes I would make alongside this (click on each dish to open a new window showing the recipe):

Egg Fried Rice

Sweet and sour pork

Chinese Chilli Beef

Ginger and garlic prawns

Crispy seaweed

Spring rolls

Chicken chow mein